How I got into soooo much trouble on xmas day. I got a plastic golf set that year, my mate over the road gets the Chopper it was a Reeeed one. Dash across road to beg a ride. I trade some food and I’m off pedalling like fury new owner now left on the pavement. Cue sound effects urrrrrgh ah (car engine noise) change gear stick from 1 to 2 more frenzied urrrrrrgh looking down at gear stick changes…more frenzied urghhhhhhh pedalling fast….holding on with one hand….CRUNCH….I run into the neighbours new car….the chopper is undamaged the car is dented…the laughter can be heard down the street; followed by my desperate scampering feet trying to outrun my Dad who is very red and very very mad………..This image has prevented me from buying a red bike or a red car ever since. I guess childhood is strange like that.

3140: I had the red with silver Panther. I was always envious of my friend though. His was blue and silver and...waitforit...foot pegs! That, was sweet!

Though mine did have a vinyl thing that domed up over the joint where the handlebars meet the frame. It had a very cool Panther logo on it.

And I had Nomads too. Only got Docs later in college. Funnily enough I bought some dress black shoes a year or so back. They had square toes and a seam ridge around the top, took them home where the GF said "why'd you buy Nomads?"

And why haven't nomads come back into fashion?, along with black puffy nylon bomber jackets?

Strangely, I just got myself a black puffy nylon bomber jacket the other day; a fiver from the sallies. As much to do with my nostalgic fetish for NZ manufacturing as anything else. No heat can escape it. I can't bring myself to wear it in public, due to a sneaking suspicion that I'll look like a dork. I think it's cool, but when it comes to fashion that's no huge endorsement.

Hadyn,In those days I was covetous of my mate's Diamondback; with its totally chrome frame it was a work of art, and had footpegs AND 360 handlebars.

Are you some sort of commie? Don't you know that there's a clear bright line between "good" smacking and "bad" smacking, and that parents who practice "good" smacking never, ever lose the plot and veer into "bad" smacking? Why, they're practically different species.

Duncan Garner on TV3 just called John Key's light smacking amendment, "good", "smart" and "commonsense".

I remember getting my first bike (the despised Raleigh 20) on my 9th birthday. I was so happy I cried. Wheels = freedom!I rode that thing until my future husband ran it (and me) into the side of a bridge. I think it went to the tip after that - pity, we owe it a happy retirement.

Children have been pretty silent over s59 (hell, they're pretty silenton most political issues - and who can blame them? When you're a kid,there are usually far more important issues, like playing with not-Lego:) , but it would be nice to see what the people most affected think about it.

I just polled the 8.5 year old (never been smacked) in my household who thinks that a) parents shouldn't smack, because it'll just make kids scared of them and the parents can use it as an excuse for beating b) that there should be a law against it, and c) that light smacking is OK - her definition of light being something that doesn't make the child cry.

Ther have been some reports of children saying they prefer smacking, because it's over and done with, and they can just get on with things.

"Don't throw me into the briar patch, Brer Fox", anyone?

In our house, we prefer the sitting chair. Children who have misbehaved are required to sit still on a chair, without talking, in the middle of the family room for varying periods of time (the worst sinner ever got 10 minutes) and reflect on the error of their ways. Any talking or getting out of the chair results in the clock being reset to the original time. Occasionally, the girls get an early release for good behaviour. It also has the handy side effect of making everyone calm down. And, it's over and done with quickly.

BTW, anyone else notice that the Catholic Church has come out today saying that it's okay to hit children in a press release speciously titled, "Children are Precious gifts"? It seems that the rights of the family override the rights of children. That's probably the same sort of family where violence against women used to be tacitly condoned too. Let's reinforce the top down authoritarian approach to being a Christian!

Back to a much more entertaining topic, my brothers and I drove my mother crazy riding round and round and round the house on our bikes. And we scared her half to death riding our skateboards down the drive, and down the steep street towards one of the busier roads in town. Fantastic fun.

What about old fashioned blocks? We had a big box of them, and we spend hours building towns and houses and castles, and setting them all up like dominoes so we could push the first one and listen to the clack-clack-clack as they tumbled down (we called them 'machine-guns'). Not so cool as Raleigh 20s and the like, but wonderful fun. My girls have a big box of them too, and they spend hours and hours building castles, and stables for their herd of "My Little Ponies", and creating designs with the different colours and shapes. I have yet to introduce them to the joys of machines guns - this winter, perhaps.

Anne and the others who wished her a happy birthday: MM was chuffed, and thanks you very much for your kind wishes.

I/S: she thinks "there should be a law that tells grownups they can't smack kids."

Also, Lynley came up with the name: it was the Junior Engineering Set.

My younger brothers had one and it is still going strong. My kids all loved it and it lived at Gran's house until she died in 2004.

The brother who loved it the most as a child has it at his place now.

Oh, it's all coming back. What made the set so good was that it included a little battery-powered motor with a spindle that you could rig up to a wheel or a propellor, or a great flying arm. Brilliant.

Lynley and I concurred - if it's not on the market, they really should relaunch it.

Yeah, it's curious and touching and lovely and sometimes quite scary. I snuck in and replaced a missing first tooth with cash the other day... and the 6-year-old burst into tears and cried "who took my tooth!" until she saw the money and little floating flower in the glass of water. Now she really does think it was the tooth fairy, and how do I tell her! But sometimes I like to kid around with them, and you can just completely make stuff up, and their little faces kind've crunch up with effort- and then they believe it. Really believe it. Like marshmallows are the easter bunny's poos. Or the moon wasn't always there, until this giant got lonely one night- whatever. Sometimes I can't understand how intelligent grown-ups can believe in stuff like god and heaven, and then I think of the little faces in Sunday school....

Now she really does think it was the tooth fairy, and how do I tell her!

I finally got fed up with the Easter bunny stories (I'm sure there was no huge Easter bunny hype when I was a child), and told the girls that there was no Easter bunny, and that in our family, we get a few Easter eggs as a treat and we share them on Easter Sunday.

They were okay with that - I think they had always thought there was something dubious about a bunny with eggs.

But on the long drive home after the Easter break, one of my five year olds obviously spent lot of time thinking, and thinking, and thinking. As we were driving out of Wanganui, in a nice demonstration of inference, half worried and half puzzled, she said, "Mum, if the Easter bunny is really just your parents, then maybe Santa Claus isn't true, and it's really just your parents."

Hey, I teach teenagers (sixth form) who don't know what a continent is, think Africa is a country, wonder how come maps aren't blurry because the earth is spinning so fast that it must make the earth blurry for when they are drawn, wonder what is on the back of the world map (as though there is a whole part of the world we don't know about), have no idea whatsoever of how we have day and night, that the earth orbits the sun, and wonder where the moon goes during the day. These are common things not just the odd student and it's a mid decile school.

I could tell some of them that we are building a bridge to the US, or a flying fox from Mt Cook to Christchurch and they would believe me.

It's all in WHO is telling them the story and HOW STRAIGHT you can keep your face.